


Raindrop

by Suikyou



Category: Bleach
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 03:56:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1115194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suikyou/pseuds/Suikyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ichigo's medium talent has always had its ups and downs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Raindrop

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for day six of the ichi_ruki "Twelve Days of Ichigo Torture," many moons ago. Prompt: silent treatment. Functions as sort of a prequel to Chapter 0, Side A, but since at the time there wasn't a good translation of it, some of the details are a little off. 
> 
> Many thanks to hallowd and himawari for their help on this one. Title from the Chopin Prelude, Op. 28, No. 15.

_Rain complicates things._

There's a fine mist in the air--not so much rain, or if it is, it is an indecisive rain, unable to choose between falling and fog--when Ichigo walks home. The humid air has dampened his hair slightly, and he doesn't like it--it makes his scalp itch. That would be easy to ignore if the joints of his uniform weren't damp and itching as well. He balls his hands in his pockets and sticks his lip out and tries to out-stubborn the urge. He has some success with that.

There's a shorter way home than this, but he hasn't taken it for some time. 

His first stop is a little girl. She sits on the brick covered fence, swinging her legs in a cheery fashion, and she calls him "Nii-san" with a delighted inflection in her voice. He leans against the fence and listens to her talk, and wishes there was some sort of thing, spirit candy or something, that he could give her. She chatters on for five minutes about the things she can see from the fence: the road and the neighbors across the way and into the yard behind her, which was once her yard. She says the woman there is going to have another baby, and clasps her hands like Yuzu would, eyes shining bright. She is a smear in the mist, little more than those bright eyes and the blot of blood at the back of her head and the swing of her legs. 

She says she's been sleepy lately. It sounds like she's going to move on soon. The chain on her chest is getting short enough for it. 

He nods at this and tells her she should move on. 

She says she'll go when she sees the baby. 

He almost believes her. Of all the spirits he knows, she has been the most constant. 

 

Down an alley to see his second stop, an older man who sits back there, sullen and ill-tempered. He liked to scare children and dogs before Ichigo found him and had a "chat" with him. Now he just sits there, sour frown on his face.

"Aren't you ever gonna move on?" Ichigo asks, kicking a rock at him. It bounces off his chest. 

"You impudent little boy..!"

"Save it, old man."

The man gives him a pissy look. "I'm gonna stay here," he announces. "I'm gonna stay here until you ROT, and then I'll come kick rocks at you!"

Ichigo rolls his eyes. "I can exorcise you."

"You wouldn't dare!"

"Hurry up and move on, and I won't!" His temper is rising, even though he knows how pointless it is to argue with ghosts.

"Huh. Like you could!"

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah!"

It's pointless to argue with ghosts, he knows, but with some, it's the only way to talk to them. 

He finally pulls away when the threats get too preposterous. Stupid old man, claiming that he could sic "the monsters in the neighborhood" on him. Ichigo'd never seen any monsters, just ghosts. Spirits were one thing to believe in, but monsters? _Che._ Weirdo. 

 

His last stop is a couple of streets over, a pair of boys. Not, as far as he knows, related, nor had they been friends before whatever had killed them. But they had appeared to him together, and had always been together every time he'd seen them. 

Ichigo has little sisters, and it's amazing how much these two boys remind him of them. They're boys, so they're louder and demanding and rambunctiously energetic in a way Karin and Yuzu had never entirely been, but they're clingy, too, touchy in a way that reminded him of earlier, simpler times in his life. He wishes, sometimes, that he could take them somewhere else other than this street, but while Tomokazu isn't bound, Nobutoshi is. 

He's well aware of how people look at him when he visits them, but he doesn't care. He doesn't care even more than usual.

Except when he gets there today, Nobutoshi isn't there. 

Ichigo kneels down by the gate where he was chained and touches a faint splatter on it. He frowns down at the pavement, where there are more faint splatters.   
He'd been there two days ago. 

He looks up to see Tomokazu staring down at him. His eyes are pinched and angry.

"What happened?" Ichigo asks. 

The boy's mouth is a flat line. 

"Did Nobutoshi move on?" 

The boy turns his head. 

"Hey, it's nothing to--" Ichigo reaches out to touch him, but the boy glides away easily, one hand balled into a fist at his side.

Ichigo watches him for a moment. "I had to work in my father's clinic yesterday," he says. "Like I do every week." 

Tomokazu flicks his eyes at him, a hard glance, but says nothing. 

"It's a good thing to move on," he says, though the spatters on gate and ground do weird things to his stomach. He's seen them before, around other spirits that haven't come back. He wonders sometimes if going to Heaven involves exploding, somehow, and is glad he's never actually seen it. 

Tomokazu's hand tightens, clenches, but he doesn't look at Ichigo, and he doesn't say anything. 

Ichigo stands, and the movement jars words out of him. "Yuzu's been cleaning out the attic. She found something I think you'll like. I'll bring it tomorrow."

Nothing.

He moves past him, careful not to touch him. He starts to say, "You'll see him again when you move on, too" but the words stick in his throat. He lets them fall back into the twist of his stomach. 

At the end of the block, he looks back. Tomokazu is looking at him, but when he sees, he jerks his head away. The boy moves closer to the gate where his friend was, and sinks down on the sidewalk next to it. He seems to be saying something to it. Ichigo wishes he could hear him.

Tomorrow, he thinks as he turns for home, he'll bring the plane.


End file.
